CPC to resume production at its steam cracker No 4 in Thailand by mid-January

MOSCOW (MRC) -- CPC Corporation plans to resume operations at one of its naphtha crackers in Taiwan by around mid-January 2020 after major maintenance works, reported CommoPlast with reference to market sources.

The cracker number 4 was shut on 8 November 2019 and was expected to remain offline for about 65 days.

The No. 4 unit has an annual capacity of 380,000 tons/year of ethylene and 193,000 tons/year of propylene. The shutdown would result in a production loss of 67,671 tons of ethylene and 34,370 tons of propylene.

Sources added that for December 2019 contract, CPC was to fulfill only 85% of the volume due to the shutdown.

As MRC informed earllier, CPC Corporation took its No. 4 cracker off-line in mid-November 2017 owing to technical issues and resumed its operations in late January, 2018. Located in Linyuan, Taiwan, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 380,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 193,000 mt/year.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.

CPC Corporation, Taiwan, is engaged in the exploration, production, refining, procurement, transportation, storage, and marketing of oil and gas. The company provides fuel oil, including automotive unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel, low-sulfur fuel oil, marine distillate fuels, marine residual fuels, and aviation fuel; petrochemicals, such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, para-xylene, and ortho-xylene; liquefied petroleum gas products comprising liquefied petroleum gas, propane, butane, and a propane/butane mixture; lubricants, motor oil, industrial oil, grease, and marilube oil; SNC products, including petroleum ether, naphtha, toluene, xylene, crude octene, methyl alcohol, normal paraffin, viscosity-graded asphalt cement, and sulfur; and natural gas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US crude stocks, gasoline and distillate inventories rose last week, reported Reuters with reference to the Energy Information Administration's statement.

Crude inventories rose by 1.2 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 3 to 431.1 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 3.6 million-barrel drop.

Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub fell by 821,000 barrels in the last week, EIA said.

Refinery crude runs fell by 386,000 barrels in the last week, EIA said. Refinery utilization rates fell by 1.5 percentage points, in the week.

US gasoline stocks rose by 9.1 million barrels in the week to 251.6 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.7 million-barrel rise.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 5.3 million barrels in the week to 139 million barrels, versus expectations for a 3.9 million-barrel rise, the data showed.

Net US crude imports rose by 1.78 million barrels in the last week, EIA said.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Tianjin Bohai has undertaken a planned shutdown at its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has started turnaround at the plant in end-December, 2019. The plant is likely to remain under maintenance for around six weeks.

Located in Tianjin, China, the PDH plant has a propylene capacity of 600,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, the company last shut this plant for an unscheduled turnaround from 1 to 11 November, 2019.

Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.

Tianjin Bohai is a state owned enterprise, with over 100 subsidiaries and 35,000 employees. It has joint venture relationships with a number of foreign partners, including: LG Chem, Solvay, Akzo Nobel, Clariant, Veolia, Air Liquide and Vopak.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Jiangsu Sabron Petrochemical CO LTD, has shut its polystyrene (PS) plant for a turnaround, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that, the company has started maintenance at the plant on January 4, 2020. The is likely to restart on January 18, 2020.

Located at Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, China, the PS plant has a production capacity of 100,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, the company last conducted scheduled maintenance works at this plant from 12 to 24 June, 2019.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics totalled 458,770 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, which corresponds to the level of 2018. November estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics rose by 2% year on year, totalling 49,210 tonnes. PS production remained in January-November 2019 the same as a year earlier. Russian producers manufactured 471,390 tonnes of material in the first eleven months of 2019.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Yokogawa Electric Corporation announced the release of Exaquantum™ R3.20, an enhanced version of its plant information management system (PIMS) software package in the OpreX™ Asset Operations and Optimisation family, said the company.

Exaquantum supports the digital transformation initiatives of customers in the process industries by gathering large volumes of plant data and transforming it into usable, high-value business information. Exaquantum R3.20 comes with extended connectivity to OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) and enables more efficient and secure communication with business systems and data analysis tools to help achieve operational improvements.

To implement digital transformation journeys and drive improvement initiatives requires improved visibility into operations and the removal of information silos across an enterprise. In the process industries, this means plants are becoming more sophisticated with sensors and smart devices generating growing volumes of process data that needs to be accumulated, integrated, and structured for analysis and decision-making on plant information management systems (PIMS). Increasingly, this large volume of data is also required by other business systems and tools, so it needs to be efficiently exported from the PIMS in a standardized format. In some situations, process data is used not just by plant operators but also other functions across the organization such as management, research, logistics, and procurement, so the data must be usable in a PC environment that follows the corporate IT regulations. Extending the usability of standardized plant data to a wider audience opens up opportunities to more easily extract value from this information and break down any silos that may exist.

As it was written earlier, Yokogawa Electric Corp signed a strategic alliance framework agreement to accelerate collaboration with chemicals major SABIC. The agreement includes selection of Yokogawa as a preferred supplier of control systems. To date, Yokogawa has delivered integrated control systems in some SABIC plants such as a large 1m tonnes/year ethylene plant in Jubail.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,724,670 tonnes in the first ten months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market in January-October 2019 totalled 1,066,520 tonnes, up by 7% year on year. Supply of block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) and homopolymer of propylene (homopolymer PP) increased, demand for statistical copolymers (PP random copolymer) decreased.

Yokogawa established Yokogawa Saudi Arabia in 2006 and Yokogawa Service Saudi Arabia in 2007. Yokogawa engages in broad-ranging activities in the areas of measurement, control, and information. The industrial automation business provides vital products, services, and solutions to a diverse range of process industries including oil, chemicals, natural gas, power, iron and steel, and pulp and paper.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the worldпїЅs market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
MRC